Help! (UK - Mono)

Track list

Side 1

1. Help!

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   2:20 • Studio version • A • Mono

   Paul McCartney : Backing vocals, Bass Ringo Starr : Drums, Tambourine John Lennon : Acoustic guitar, Lead vocals George Harrison : Backing vocals, Electric guitar George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer

   SessionRecording : Apr 13, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

   SessionOverdubs : Between April 14 and 17, 1965 • Studio : CTS Studios, 47-53 Kensington Garden Square • London • UK

   SessionMixing : Apr 18, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Room 65, Abbey Road • London • UK

2. The Night Before

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   2:35 • Studio version • A • Mono

   Paul McCartney : Bass, Lead vocals Ringo Starr : Drums, Maracas John Lennon : Backing vocals, Electric piano, Lead guitar George Harrison : Backing vocals, Lead guitar George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer

   SessionRecording : Feb 17, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

   SessionMixing : Feb 18, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

3. You've Got to Hide Your Love Away

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   2:09 • Studio version • A • Mono

   Paul McCartney : Bass, Maracas Ringo Starr : Drums, Tambourine John Lennon : Acoustic guitar, Lead vocals George Harrison : Acoustic guitar George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer Johnnie Scott : Alto flute, Tenor flute

   SessionRecording : Feb 18, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

   SessionOverdubs : Feb 20, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

   SessionMixing : Feb 20, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road • London • UK

4. I Need You

   Written by George Harrison

   2:29 • Studio version • A • Mono

   Paul McCartney : Backing vocals, Bass Ringo Starr : Cowbell, Percussion John Lennon : Backing vocals, Drums George Harrison : Acoustic guitar, Electric guitar, Lead vocals George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer

   SessionRecording : Feb 15, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

   SessionOverdubs : Feb 16, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

   SessionMixing : Feb 18, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

5. Another Girl

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   2:05 • Studio version • A • Mono

   Paul McCartney : Bass, Electric guitar, Lead vocals Ringo Starr : Drums John Lennon : Backing vocals, Electric guitar George Harrison : Acoustic guitar, Backing vocals George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer

   SessionRecording : Feb 15, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

   SessionOverdubs : Feb 16, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

   SessionMixing : Feb 18, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

6. You're Going to Lose That Girl

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   2:19 • Studio version • A • Mono

   Paul McCartney : Backing vocals, Bass, Electric piano Ringo Starr : Drums John Lennon : Electric guitar, Lead vocals George Harrison : Backing vocals, Electric guitar George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer

   SessionRecording : Feb 19, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

   SessionMixing : Apr 02, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road • London • UK

7. Ticket To Ride

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   3:06 • Studio version • A • Mono

   Paul McCartney : Backing vocals, Bass, Lead guitar Ringo Starr : Drums, Tambourine John Lennon : Electric guitar, Handclaps, Lead vocals George Harrison : Electric guitar George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer

   SessionRecording : Feb 15, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

   SessionMixing : Feb 18, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

Side 2

1. Act Naturally

   Written by Johnny Russell, Voni Morrison

   2:30 • Studio version • A • Mono

   Paul McCartney : Backing vocals, Bass Ringo Starr : Drums, Lead vocals George Harrison : Acoustic guitar, Electric guitar George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer

   SessionRecording : Jun 17, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

   SessionMixing : Jun 18, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

2. It's Only Love

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   1:57 • Studio version • A • Mono

   Paul McCartney : Bass Ringo Starr : Drums, Tambourine John Lennon : Acoustic guitar, Acoustic rhythm guitar, Lead vocals George Harrison : Acoustic guitar, Electric guitar George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer

   SessionRecording : Jun 15, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

   SessionMixing : Jun 18, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

3. You Like Me Too Much

   Written by George Harrison

   2:34 • Studio version • A • Mono

   Paul McCartney : Backing vocals, Bass, Piano Ringo Starr : Drums John Lennon : Electric piano, Tambourine George Harrison : Acoustic guitar, Lead guitar, Lead vocals George Martin : Piano, Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer

   SessionRecording : Feb 17, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

   SessionMixing : Feb 18, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

4. Tell Me What You See

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   2:35 • Studio version • A • Mono

   Paul McCartney : Bass, Electric piano, Lead vocals Ringo Starr : Drums, Tambourine John Lennon : Electric guitar, Lead vocals George Harrison : Claves, Guiro George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer

   SessionRecording : Feb 18, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

   SessionMixing : Feb 20, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

5. I've Seen That Face

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   2:05 • Studio version • A • Mono

   Paul McCartney : Acoustic guitar, Backing vocals, Lead vocals Ringo Starr : Drums, Maracas George Harrison : Acoustic guitar George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer

   SessionRecording : Jun 14, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

   SessionMixing : Jun 18, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

6. Yesterday

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   2:06 • Studio version • A • Mono

   Paul McCartney : Guitar, Vocals George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer Tony Gilbert : Violin Sidney Sax : Violin Kenneth Essex : Viola Francesc Gabarró Solé : Cello

   SessionRecording : Jun 14, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

   SessionOverdubs : Jun 17, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

   SessionMixing : Jun 17, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road • London • UK

7. Dizzy Miss Lizzy

   Written by Larry Williams

   2:51 • Studio version • A • Mono

   Paul McCartney : Bass Ringo Starr : Cowbell, Drums John Lennon : Electric guitar, Electric piano, Lead vocals George Harrison : Electric guitar George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer

   SessionRecording : May 10, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

   SessionMixing : May 10, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

From Wikipedia:

Help! is the fifth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles and the soundtrack to the film Help!. It was released on 6 August 1965 by Parlophone. Seven of the fourteen songs, including the singles “Help!” and “Ticket to Ride“, appeared in the film and take up the first side of the vinyl album. The second side includes “Yesterday“, the most-covered song ever written. The album was met with favourable critical reviews and topped the Australian, German, British and American charts.

During the recording sessions for the album, the Beatles continued to explore the studio’s multitracking capabilities to layer their sound. “Yesterday” features a string quartet, the band’s first use of Baroque sensibilities, and “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” includes a flute section. The North American release is a true soundtrack album, combining the first seven songs with instrumental music from the film. The omitted tracks are instead spread across the Capitol Records LPs Beatles VI, Rubber Soul and Yesterday and Today.

In the US, Help! marked the start of artistic recognition for the Beatles from mainstream critics, including comparisons to the European art music tradition. It was nominated in the category of Album of the Year at the 1966 Grammys Awards, marking the first time that a rock band had been recognised in this category. In 2000, it was voted 119th in the third edition of Colin Larkin’s book All Time Top 1000 Albums. In 2020, it was ranked 266th on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”. In September 2013, after the British Phonographic Industry changed its sales award rules, Help! was certified platinum for recorded sales since 1994.

Background

In 1964, the Beatles appeared in their first feature film, A Hard Day’s Night. Despite initial scepticism, reviews were near universal in their acclaim, elevating the Beatles’ prestige as artists. Intending to make one film a year, work began on a second Beatles picture for a 1965 release. It would once again be directed by Richard Lester and produced by Walter Shenson, but written by Marc Behm and Charles Wood instead of Alun Owen. It was given the working title Eight Arms to Hold You, one of Ringo Starr’s “Ringoisms”; the name stuck until early April, long enough to even appear on the US “Ticket to Ride” single, but John Lennon and Paul McCartney presumed it would be too difficult to write a compelling song with that title, so Help! was chosen instead.

According to McCartney, most of the songwriting for Help! was done at Kenwood, Lennon’s house in Weybridge. McCartney also wrote some songs, e.g. “Yesterday” and “I’ve Just Seen a Face“, at his girlfriend Jane Asher’s family home, 57 Wimpole Street in London. At this time, the Beatles were heavily influenced by Bob Dylan, especially Lennon, who later referred to it as his “Dylan period”. Mark Hertsgaard writes that while Dylan’s influence was “evident” on Beatles for Sale, Help! is where it became “fully realized”. Additionally, Help! is the first Beatles album on which drugs made a significant impact. Dylan in 1964 had introduced them to cannabis, which they smoked habitually while filming Help!, and they first encountered LSD in spring 1965. According to Alexis Petridis, drugs motivated the Beatles on Help! to take their songwriting to “new emotional depths”, such as on “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” and “Ticket to Ride”.

Recording and production

Recording history

Following their Christmas 1964 shows, the Beatles took a month’s break before beginning work on Help! All of the recording sessions took place in Studio Two of EMI Recording Studios (now Abbey Road Studios). The first set of sessions began on 15 February with “Ticket to Ride” and continued through the 20th, after which the group flew to the Bahamas to begin filming. They took with them a tape of the 11 songs recorded so that Lester and Shenson could decide which ones to use in the film.

Several songs recorded during these initial sessions were not included on the Help! album. Lennon’s “Yes It Is” was relegated to the B-side of the “Ticket to Ride” single and a cover of Larry Williams’ “Bad Boy” was put on the North American album Beatles VI. Two Lennon–McCartney compositions were rejected for release altogether. The first was “If You’ve Got Trouble“, originally written for Ringo Starr as his obligatory lead vocal for the album. One take was attempted on 18 February before it was abandoned. The other was “That Means a Lot“. Two versions were attempted, one on 20 February and a “re-make” on 30 March, but it was ultimately given to a friend of the band, singer P. J. Proby, to record. Proby’s version was released as a single and reached number 30 on the UK chart. Both “If You’ve Got Trouble” and take 1 of “That Means a Lot” were eventually released on Anthology 2 in 1996, along with other outtakes from the Help! sessions. Additionally, the last song recorded in this time was “Wait“, which would not be released until the Beatles’ next album, Rubber Soul.

According to Mark Lewisohn, 14 June 1965 saw “[a] remarkable day’s work” and showcased McCartney’s musical abilities in varying styles; the Beatles recorded his songs “I’ve Just Seen a Face”, “I’m Down“, and “Yesterday”. “Yesterday” began with just McCartney singing and playing acoustic guitar, but he and producer George Martin decided to add a string quartet. Martin later described it as when, “I started to leave my hallmark on [the Beatles’] music, when a style started to emerge which was partly of my making.” “I’m Down” was released as the B-side of “Help!” but not included on the album.

Innovations and techniques

We still haven’t made the sort of sound we want to, and we don’t even know what we’re after.

John Lennon during the recording of Help!

Lewisohn writes that 1965 introduced the part of the Beatles’ career where they put less focus on live performances and took “a more serious application in the recording studio.” He identifies multiple new recording practices used on Help!, one being “to rehearse songs with a tape machine running, spooling back to record properly over the rehearsed material.” Another involved adding numerous overdubs to rhythm tracks without considering them as comprising new takes; because of this, many songs on Help! are documented as having needed only a small number of takes, yet they still required hours of work. Martin also began placing the guitar parts on different tracks than the bass and drums, accomplishing “a more satisfying stereo image” according to Walter Everett.

According to Hertsgaard, Help! showed “a major acceleration in the Beatles’ ongoing search for fresh sounds.” He points out that half of the songs feature instruments the Beatles had never used before, including electric piano, flutes, a volume/tone pedal, and most famously “Yesterday”‘s strings. Help! is also the first Beatles album to feature the Epiphone Casino, first purchased by McCartney around December 1964 before quickly becoming a staple of the group’s instrumentation. Before the recording of “Yesterday”, the flutes on “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” were played by John Scott, only the second outside musician to appear on a Beatles track (after Andy White).

Songs

Side one

The song “Help!” was written primarily by Lennon. He originally conceived it at a slower tempo and regretted speeding it up to make it more commercial. Although it was only written out of need for a titular song, Lennon remained extremely proud of “Help!” from the Beatles’ break-up to his death, even once calling it his favorite Beatles song he wrote. He felt it was one of his “real” songs, explaining in an interview: “The whole Beatle thing was just beyond comprehension. I was eating and drinking like a pig and I was fat as a pig, dissatisfied with myself … later, I knew I was really crying out for help. So it was my fat Elvis period.”

McCartney’s “The Night Before” is the first Beatles song to feature electric piano, played by Lennon. McCartney and George Harrison played the guitar solo together, doubling each other in octaves.

Lennon specified “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” as exemplifying his “Dylan period”. A connection has been suggested between the lyric and Beatles manager Brian Epstein’s homosexuality, which he kept private due to British law at the time.

“I Need You” was George Harrison’s first songwriting contribution since “Don’t Bother Me” in 1963. He wrote it for his girlfriend Pattie Boyd, whom he met while filming A Hard Day’s Night. Its unusual guitar sound was achieved using a volume/tone pedal – the first time a guitar pedal was used on a Beatles song. A year after Harrison’s death in 2001, Tom Petty sang it at the Concert for George.

McCartney wrote “Another Girl” while holidaying at a villa in Hammamet, Tunisia. He played lead guitar on the track as Harrison was struggling with it.

“You’re Going to Lose That Girl” was written by Lennon and McCartney together, though McCartney credited it 60–40 to Lennon. Some have interpreted it as a continuation of “She Loves You” due to it revisiting the theme of a love triangle.

“Ticket to Ride” was another song Lennon and McCartney wrote together, but they later disagreed on how much each of them contributed. Lennon said in 1980, “Paul’s contribution was the way Ringo played the drums.” In Many Years from Now, McCartney responded: “John just didn’t take the time to explain that we sat down together and worked on that song for a three-hour songwriting session, and at the end of it we had all the words, we had the harmonies, and we had all the little bits. … We wrote the melody together … Because John sang it, you might have to give him 60 per cent of it.”

The meaning of the phrase “ticket to ride” has been debated. As was rumoured at the time, it was partially inspired by the town Ryde in the Isle of Wight, where McCartney’s cousin owned a pub that he and Lennon had performed at in the early 1960s. Another story goes that Lennon used “ticket to ride” to refer to cards given to prostitutes in Hamburg by health authorities. Lennon touted the song as “one of the earliest heavy metal records made.”

Side two

“Act Naturally“, written by Johnny Russell and first recorded by Buck Owens in 1963, was chosen by Ringo Starr to be his vocal contribution to the album. Recorded at the end of the Help! sessions, it was the last-recorded cover song the Beatles would officially release until “Maggie Mae” in 1970. In 1989, Owens and Starr recorded another version together.

“It’s Only Love” was originally written by Lennon under the title “That’s a Nice Hat (Cap)”. Five guitar layers were used on the track, including Harrison’s which was run through a Leslie speaker. Lennon was highly critical of the song in later years: “That’s the one song I really hate of mine. Terrible lyric.”

“You Like Me Too Much” began the precedent of Harrison providing two or more songs to each Beatles album. It once again features Lennon on electric piano, but also George Martin and McCartney on a Steinway grand piano.

For “Tell Me What You See“, McCartney drew inspiration for his lyrics from a religious verse that hung on a wall in Lennon’s childhood home. McCartney later described it as a filler song, “Not awfully memorable.”

McCartney wrote “I’ve Just Seen a Face” at the home of his girlfriend Jane Asher’s family, at 57 Wimpole Street in London. It would become one of McCartney’s favorite Beatles songs and among the only ones he would perform with his later band Wings.

The album’s penultimate track, “Yesterday“, came partially to McCartney in his sleep. He spent about a month playing it to people to make sure he had not plagiarised it. He then wrote working lyrics for it under the title “Scrambled Eggs”. “Yesterday” was later recognized by Guinness World Records as the most-covered pop song in history.

The album ends with a cover of Larry Williams’ “Dizzy Miss Lizzy“. Lennon in particular was a fan of Williams and, along with “Bad Boy”, the Beatles also recorded his song “Slow Down“.

Album cover

The album cover shows the Beatles with their arms positioned to spell out a word in flag semaphore. According to cover photographer Robert Freeman, “I had the idea of semaphore spelling out the letters ‘HELP’. But when we came to do the shot, the arrangement of the arms with those letters didn’t look good. So we decided to improvise and ended up with the best graphic positioning of the arms.”

On the UK Parlophone release, the letters formed by the Beatles appear to be “NUJV”, while the slightly re-arranged US release on Capitol Records appeared to indicate the letters “NVUJ”, with McCartney’s left hand pointing to the Capitol logo. The Capitol LP was issued in a “deluxe” gatefold sleeve with several photos from the film and was priced $1 more than standard Capitol releases at the time.

Compact disc release

There have been four CD releases of Help!. The first was on 30 April 1987, using the 14-song UK track line-up. Having been available only as an import in the US in the past, the original 14-track UK version replaced the original US version with its release on LP and cassette as well on 21 July 1987. As with the CD release of the 1965 Rubber Soul album, the Help! CD featured a contemporary stereo digital remix of the album prepared by Martin in 1986. Martin had expressed concern to EMI over the original 1965 stereo mix, claiming it sounded “very woolly, and not at all what I thought should be a good issue”. Martin went back to the original four-track tapes and remixed them for stereo. One of the most notable changes is the echo added to “Dizzy Miss Lizzy”, something that was not evident on the original mix of the LP.

When the album was originally released on CD in Canada, pressings were imported from other countries, and used the 1987 remix. However, when the Disque Améric and Cinram plants in Canada started pressing the album, the original 1965 stereo mix was used by mistake. This was the only source for the 1965 stereo mix in its entirety until the release of the mono box set in 2009.

The 2009 remastered stereo CD was released on 9 September. It was “created from the original stereo digital master tapes from Martin’s CD mixes made in 1986”. The original 1965 stereo mix was included as a bonus on the mono CD contained in The Beatles in Mono boxed set.

The 1965 stereo mix was reissued again on the Help! CD contained in the Beatles collection The Japan Box released in 2014.

Critical reception

Contemporary reviews

Help! was another worldwide critical success for the Beatles. Derek Johnson of the NME said that the LP “maintains the Beatles’ usual high standards” and was a “gay, infectious romp which doesn’t let up in pace or sparkle from start to finish – with the exception of one slow track”. Despite the band’s introduction of new instrumentation into their sound, particularly a string quartet on “Yesterday”, the reviewer also wrote of the album: “It’s typical Beatles material, and offers very few surprises. But then, who wants surprises from the Beatles?” While typical of the light and snappy pop music reviews at the time, according to music journalist Michael Halpin, these comments angered McCartney, who, like his bandmates, believed that artists should constantly develop through their work.

In the United States, where the mainstream press had long focused on the Beatlemania phenomenon and had derided the group’s music, as well as rock ‘n’ roll generally, the summer of 1965 coincided with the first examples of artistic recognition for the Beatles from the country’s cultural mainstream. Among these endorsements, Richard Freed of The New York Times likened the band’s songs to works from the European art music tradition. Adding to what he described as the Beatles’ impact on “serious music”, Freed cited musicologists and composers such as Leonard Bernstein and Abram Chasins as admirers of the group’s work. Along with several nominations for “Yesterday”, Help! was nominated in the category of Album of the Year at the 1966 Grammys Awards. The nomination marked the first time that a rock band had been recognised in this category.

Retrospective assessments

In his review of the Beatles’ 1987 CD releases, for Rolling Stone magazine, Steve Pond remarked on the “unstoppable momentum” evident in the band’s pre-Rubber Soul albums and recommended Help! “for the relatively quiet and understated way in which they consolidated their strengths”. Writing in 2004 edition of The Rolling Stone Album Guide, Rob Sheffield says that the US version of Help! was “utterly ruined” through the replacement of the Beatles songs with the soundtrack music, and that, as a result, the album remained relatively overlooked. He describes the full album as “a big step forward” and “the first chapter in the astounding creative takeoff the Beatles were just beginning”.

Mark Kemp of Paste considers it to be the equal of A Hard Day’s Night and cites “Help!”, “Ticket to Ride” and “Act Naturally” as highlights, along with Harrison’s return as a songwriter. Kemp identifies “Yesterday” as “the album’s masterpiece” and a song that “set the stage for one of the most groundbreaking and innovative periods in The Beatles’ career, not to mention pop music in general”. Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph says that the album evokes “a band in transition, shifting slightly uncomfortably from the pop thrills of Beatlemania to something more mature”, with Lennon’s writing increasingly autobiographical and the group’s sound growing more sophisticated. McCormick concludes: “Help! may not be their greatest album, but it contains some of their greatest early songs.”

In 2000, Help! was voted 119th in the third edition of Colin Larkin’s book All Time Top 1000 Albums. In 2006, it was recognised as one of the “Most Significant Rock Albums” in the Greenwood Encyclopedia of Rock History. Two years before then, Tor Milde, music critic for the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang, ranked it at number 20 on his list of “The 100 Best Pop and Rock Albums of All Time”. In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked Help! number 332 on their list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”, raising the ranking to number 331 in the 2012 update and then number 266 in the 2020 list.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Lennon–McCartney, except where noted.

North American Capitol release

The North American version, the band’s eighth Capitol Records album and tenth overall, includes the songs in the film plus selections from the film’s orchestral score composed and conducted by Ken Thorne, which contains one of the first uses of the Indian sitar on a rock/pop album, and its very first use on a Beatles record. “Ticket to Ride” is the only song on the American release in Duophonic stereo (also known as “fake stereo”) reprocessed from the mono mix. Likewise, the mono version of the album uses a folded-down stereo mix of “Help!” instead of the true mono version used on the single, which features a different vocal track. Help! is available on CD as part of The Capitol Albums, Volume 2 box set. This CD contains both the stereo and mono fold-down versions as heard on the American LP release. A second CD release of this album, which contains the seven songs in true mono mixes, was issued in 2014 individually and as part of the Beatles’ The U.S. Albums box set.

All of the non-film tracks from side two of the Parlophone album were spread out through three American albums. Three were already issued on the previously released Beatles VI: “You Like Me Too Much”, “Tell Me What You See” and “Dizzy Miss Lizzy”. “I’ve Just Seen A Face” and “It’s Only Love” were placed on the Capitol Rubber Soul, with its follow-up album Yesterday and Today receiving the remaining two tracks: “Yesterday” and “Act Naturally”.

The American version of Help! reached the number one spot on the Billboard Top LPs chart for nine weeks starting on 11 September 1965. […]

REVIEW – Help! (Parlophone PMC 1255). Beatles

Small wonder the Americans pressed a million copies of this LP before they released it. Seven of the 11 new songs are what I can only term first class; the Beatles are brilliant songwriters. There’s Help!, the title song from the film, a bit of padding like Ticket to Ride, a little solo from Ringo, a Dylanesque gem from John, two pedestrian, though not bad, compositions from George, Dizzy Miss Lizzy—and the rest is marvellous. You’re Going to Lose That Girl and I’ve Just Seen A Face are two songs as good as you’re likely to hear, while Paul, with a string quartet behind him, sings the most beautiful love song called Yesterday—rather, one imagines, in the style of Henry VIII.

From Evening Standard – By Maureen Cleave – August 14, 1965

‘HELP!’

THIS album could easily be titled “The Many Moods Of The Beatles”. Showcased in fourteen tracks are ballads, rock and roll, folk, country and western and a helping of straight pop. The striking cover is plain white with the Beatles spelling out the word “Help” in semaphor with their arms. Their blue and black costumes contrast vividly with the background.

The title song “Help!” opens the LP. If anyone isn’t familiar with it by now they’d better have a good reason why not. Paul’s slightly rusty voice takes the lead on “The Night Before”, a medium-fast number. George and John provide the chorus and there’s a short bluesy guitar break. “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away” has John in a very folksy mood. Strumming guitars and a tambourine are prominent throughout the sad, slow number. At the very end, flutes add to the sombre effect. George makes one of his rare vocal appearances on “I Need You”. The cha cha rhythm carries the song along, but it is not outstanding. Paul again on “Another Girl” which is fast and good for Mod dances. There are some good guitar phrases and an insistent beat combined with the guitars to keep the pace going. Paul’s voice is mellower here. “You’re Going To Lose That Girl” has John up front with Paul and George repeating phrases in the background. A mid-tempo number, it features a short guitar break over the chorus. Ringo’s bongos are ever present. Side one ends with “Ticket To Ride,” still sounding as great as ever.

Ringo takes the vocal spotlight for “Act Naturally” which opens part two. It’s a country style song about a lad who’s going to make it big in movies by just acting himself. Not a Beatle-penned song, this. Credits go to Morrison and Russell. Ringo and Paul combine well for certain vocals. Another slow weepie from John on “It’s Only Love.” He’s almost in tears and you can almost imagine the wet hankies clutched in female paws as they listen to this. There’s some wistful guitar work from George adding to the melodrama. A barrelhouse piano introduces “You Like Me Too Much” which George sings. It develops into a bright, gentle beater with John on electric piano and Paul and George Martin on Steinways. The chorus is faster and aided by a tambourine. “Tell Me What You See” is a medium tempo vocal duet from John and Paul. The lead guitar repeats a phrase throughout and two short piano breaks feature Paul. A softish number. “I’ve Just Seen A Face” is very fast with prominent drums behind Paul’s singing. There’s a slight C and W flavour with snatches of scat-type singing. Hankies out again, girls, for “Yesterday.” Paul sings the slow, sombre and painful song and accompanies himself on guitar. An added string quartet lend a mournful quality as Paul tells how he lost his love the day before and is very, very hurt and alone. My favourite track. Rockarama! That’s Larry Williams’ “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” which John belts out. A screaming guitar and crashing drums lead into John’s raucous voice. The guitar break involves occasional vocal encouragement from John who gets even wilder as the song progresses.

From Record Mirror – July 24, 1965